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OX-OP ARTS PRESENTS: "Rome is Burning/The New School"

Thursday, November 8th, 7:30 PM-9:00pm
Presented @ The Foster Gallery: University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Show Runs November 8th-December 2nd, 2007

The news of OX-OP's demise have been greatly exaggerated. True we did close our space & suspended booking monthly shows at the close of the 2006 Juxtapoz show but that wasn't the end of us, not by a long shot.

Impressed with the quality & turnout for last year's Juxtapoz show, the Foster Gallery at the University of Wisconsin has invited us to curate a show & turned over 2 huge galleries to bring all sorts of delicious goodness over the border to the dairy state.

Robt. Williams started Juxtapoz magazine in 1994 as a way to showcase art outside of the mainstream contemporary art world including those working in the medium of underground comix, rock posters, graffiti art, Kustom Kulture, and graphic design.

Since then, the "lowbrow"/pop surrealism movement has gained worldwide attention & is undoubtedly the first definable art movement of the 21st century. Rome is Burning/The New School brings together some of the original players as well as members of the next generation who continue adding to the vitality of the genre.

The entire show is also online at www.ox-op.com & on our Flickr page-http://flickr.com/photos/21021998@N05/

ROME IS BURNING ARTISTS:
Aesthetic Apparatus • Kii Arens • Attaboy • Anthony Ausgang • Oksana Badrak • Gary Baseman • Sunny Buick • Ray Caesar • Colin Christian • Sas Christian • Coop • Dalek • Jennifer Davis • Shepard Fairey • Naoto Hattori • Haze XXL • Derek Hess • Aaron Horkey • John John Jesse • Nathan Jurevicius • Charles Krafft • Chris Mars • Angie Mason •
Rob McBroom • Liz McGrath • Mark Mothersbaugh • Heiko Müller • Niagara • Martin Ontiveros • Chris Ryniak • Isabel Samaras • Shag • Bwana Spoons • Gary Taxali • 27 • Dennis Worden

Special Gallery talks:
November 9th @11 am-Rob McBroom
November 16th @ 11 am- Anthony Ausgang
November 30th @ 11 am-Gary Baseman

The Foster Gallery @ The Haas Fine Arts Center
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
121 Water Street
Eau Claire, WI 54703

Opening Reception November 8th 7:30-9pm
Gallery Hours : Monday through Friday: 10 am - 4:30 pm
Saturday & Sunday: 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Thursday evening: 6:00 pm-8:00 pm
No admission charged

www.ox-op.com
www.uwec.edu/Art/featuresc.htm

The Spectator
"Rome is Burning:Show features pieces from contemporary art world" by, Nicole Strittmater
Published 11/15/07

If the life-size, provocative glass statue of a cartoon woman dressed in tight, red leather didn't catch your eye in Foster Gallery, maybe the porcelain "Junkie Bunny" did.

Perhaps it was the piece that incorporated a used pregnancy test, or the large spray-painted work called "The Magical Fetus."

Or it could have been the animations about death and suicide playing on the wall to ominous music.

These, and many more works of art, make up Foster Gallery's new exhibit "Rome is Burning/The New School" in Haas Fine Arts Center, a show featuring pieces from outside the mainstream contemporary art world, said Tom Wagener, director of Foster Gallery.

The show features "lowbrow" art or pop surrealism, which started in the early 1970s as an answer to the elitist attitude of many in the fine art community, he said.

Among the works are underground comix, rock posters, graffiti art, Kustom Kulture and graphic design. Many of the artists associated with pop surrealism are graphic designers, video artists and cartoonists.

Curator of the show, Rob McBroom of the OX-OP gallery in Minneapolis, said ever since Robert Williams founded Juxtapoz magazine in 1994 to showcase this underground art, the "lowbrow" movement gained attention worldwide.

"(The magazine) was a gigantic 'F*** you' to the contemporary art world," McBroom said.

He said he advises students to create pieces for themselves and not to please others.

"That's how I always approach art. I hope the kids, in general, do too," McBroom said, adding he enjoys how open UW-Eau Claire is to new types of work. "Do it for yourself. You can take people's criticism, and there's going to be a lot of it ... I never compromised."

Wagener said he is happy with how the exhibit turned out.

"We're pretty fortunate to have a show of this work," he said. "I encourage students to visit. It's a pretty impressive show."

UW-Eau Claire invited McBroom to bring this exhibit to Foster Gallery. It features 36 professional artists.

While McBroom said there are so many different things going on in the exhibit, he likes how they all work together.

"It still has a sort of cohesiveness to it," he said. "I tried to make sure that there was a nice diverse range of artists in there."

In the far end of the gallery, poses the provocative, life-size statue, "Firecracker," one that Wagener said stands out to him.

"I really enjoy that piece for its high degree of craftsmanship and detail," he said, adding that he has a few favorites for different reasons. "I like the whimsical nature of so many of these."

On the wall across from "Firecracker," the animation "A Purge of Dissidents" plays.

The work is broken up into short episodes and set to dark music.

For example, in Episode 6, "It's A Sacrifice … Not Suicide," a creature with a knife stabs itself, and two streams of blood rush out of its body and into what appear to be martini glasses.

Then, the creature falls into what appears to be a coffin, which closes and rolls away.

Senior Amy O'Connor said she tries to visit every art show in Foster Gallery.

"First impressions, it's definitely different than the other exhibits I see," she said as she browsed. "That's kind of nice to see."

Among other work, "Al-Qaida Idol" hangs on the wall, which is an ink and acrylic piece using a comic book clipping on a page of the Koran.

McBroom's work "Scene From Duck Soup In Front of A Bottle of Cologne," is also featured, which is acrylic and incorporates glitter and a used pregnancy test from years earlier.

He said when he started this project, he had just broken up with his girlfriend and was devastated.

To help him escape the pain of the break-up, he watched the Marx Brothers' "Duck Soup."

"I laughed out loud, because it was hilarious," he said. "It kind of saved me in a way."

So he took a scene from "Duck Soup" and incorporated different elements, such as acrylics, glitter and the pregnancy test.

The woman he was dating told him she thought she was pregnant, so she took a test.

"She had accidentally dropped it in the toilet," he said, so she thought it was ruined.

But McBroom said he wanted it for his project.

"I'm like, 'Could you rinse it out and give it to me?' " he said with a laugh. "I went to glue the cap on later that night, and the glue I used pushed the pH just enough so both lines showed up."

This piece is hanging in the gallery.

Junior Angela Lefeber, who works in Foster Gallery, said she was impressed with the piece.

"Who uses glitter in art?" she said, adding that she would never think to since it seems childish to her. "I think it actually works (here)."

Lefeber said she thinks this exhibit will attract a large crowd

"It's the bizarreness and the strangeness that people are going to want to see."

© Copyright 2007 The Spectator

Art Dealer

www.ox-op.com or http://flickr.com/photos/21021998@N05/ 

Art Attack on the Suburbs-Grumpy’s Art Unveiling Party
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"Rome is Burning/The New School"
Aesthetic Apparatus-"The Official Aesthetic Apparatus Kindling & Litter-Box-Liner Sale"
Gary Baseman- "MOD Manifestations Of Desire"
Mark Mothersbaugh-"Postcard Diaries"
Gary Taxali-"Chumpy's Specials"
Nathan Jurevicius-"Tunnel Vision"
Shepard Fairey "Visual Disobedience"
Jaime Hayon: "Mon Cirque"
Derek Hess: "Descent from Grace"
Shag-"Push Your Luck"
Billy Childish-Paintings, Prints, Poetry & Performance
Kii Arens-"The Yard Sale"
Burlesque of North America: First Blood, Part III
"Triangulated Fire" paintings by Naoto Hattori, Ryan Kelly & Chris Ryniak
BuffMonster-"Dulces Locos"
Dalek- "The Return of the Space Monkey"
Yumiko Kayukawa & Oksana Badrak
Glenn Barr-"New Paintings & Prints"
KRK Ryden-"The Atomic Glob Show"
Camille Rose Garcia-"Works on Paper"
"Qeedrophonic"
Frank Kozik-"All Your Base Are Belong to Us"
Bwana Spoons & Martin Ontiveros "Like Sqeezing Juice from a Stone"
"Rated XX"
Aesthetic Apparatus
George Thompson-"Bachelor of Fine Arts"
Mark Mothersbaugh-"Beautiful Mutants"
Charles S. Anderson Design-"Awful Pretty: Original Art"
Jeff Soto-"Complete Domination"
Dave Burke-"New Paintings"
Tim Biskup-"The Phantom Thread"
Shag-"Tell No One: Paintings and Prints"
Niagara-"Paintings,Prints and General Artistic Mayhem
Shepard Fairey -"Prints and the Revolution"
Gary Baseman-"Open Wounds (and other paintings about vulnerability)"
Dalek-"Two Fingers of Milk"
"Big Bang"